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It was three months, no, it was two months and four days
since I had lost her, but the memory of her enchanting
eyes, no, the attractive malice of her eyes, remained in
my life forever. How can I forget one who is so pertinent
to my life?
No, I will not call her by name, because she, with that
ethereal body, slim and misty, with those two large,
wonder stricken, sparkling eyes behind which my life was
gradually and painfully burning and melting away, she no
longer belongs to this base, fierce world. No, I should
not disgrace her name with earthly things.
Since the time when I lost her, since the time when a
heavy wall, a solid, moist dam as heavy as lead, was
created between her and me, I have felt that my life has
become useless and confounded. Although her kind look,
and the deep pleasure that I drew from seeing her, were
universal--she would have no answers for me because she
did not see me--nevertheless, I needed those eyes, and
only one glance from her was sufficient to solve all
philosophical difficulties and theological enigmas for
me. After one glance from her, there would remain no
mystery or secret for me.
Was she sick? Had she lost her way? She had come here
unconsciously, quite in the same way that a sleep-walker
would. No living creature can imagine the mental state I
experienced at this moment. I felt a pleasant, yet
indescribable, pain. No. I was not deceived. That lady
was this same girl who had entered my room without being
astonished, without uttering a word. I had always
imagined our first meeting to be like this. This state
was like a deep sleep, endless sleep for me; one has to
be in a very deep sleep to have such a dream. The silence
was like an eternal life for me, because one cannot speak
at the beginning, or at the end of eternity.
Her face had the same calm and motionless expression but
it looked smaller and thinner. As she reclined she was
chewing on the index finger of her left hand. Her face
was the color of silver, and through her thin, black
garment which fit her tightly one could see the outline
of her legs, arms, the two breasts, and all the rest of
her body.
While she was still alive, while her eyes were brimful
with life, only the memory of her eyes tortured me, but
now, devoid of feeling and motionless and cold, with eyes
already closed, she came and surrendered herself to me.
With closed eyes!
The whip whistled through the air, and the horses, whose
labored breath issued through their nostrils like columns
of smoke in rainy weathers began to move with long but
gentle leaps. Their slim forelegs, like the hand of a
thief severed of its fingers by law and plunged into hot
oil, struck the ground gently and noiselessly. In the
damp air, the sound of the bells on their necks had a
special ring. An indescribable relief, the cause of which
I did not know, had filled me from head to toe so
thoroughly that I could barely feel the movement of the
hearse. The only thing that I felt was the weight of the
suitcase on my chest.
The new world to which I awoke, with its environs and its
modes of life and activity, was thoroughly known and
close to me. This world was so familiar that I could even
say I felt more at home in it than I had in my previous
life and its environs. In a way this was an echo, or a
reflection, of my previous life. Although a different
world, it was so near and relevant to me that I thought I
had returned to my original environment. I was reborn in
an ancient world which was both closer and more natural
to me.
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The rising sun was burning hot. I reached some quiet and
empty streets. On my way there were some grey houses
designed in strange, singular, geometric shapes: cubic,
prismatic and conic houses with low, dark windows; the
windows did not have any shutters and the houses seemed
to be temporary and abandoned. No living being,
apparently, could live in those houses.
At this very moment I saw his father, the stooped old man
who wore a scarf, leave the house. He went on his way
without looking in my direction. He laughed convulsively,
a dreadful laughter that made his shoulders shake and
caused one's hair to stand on end. I was so ashamed of
what I was doing that I wished I could sink into the
ground. It would soon be time for the sun to set. I got
off the platform as though trying to run away from myself
and involuntarily headed for home. I did not see anything
or anyone; it was as if I were traveling in some unknown
and unidentifiable town. I was surrounded by scattered,
geometrically designed houses with only a few black,
deserted windows. It seemed that no living creature could
inhabit those white-walled houses from which a faint
light emanated. The incredible thing is that whenever I
stood between the moon and one of these walls, I cast a
very large and dense shadow, but the whole time my shadow
was headless. My shadow did not have a head. I had heard
that those whose shadow is headless die before the year's
end.
She indeed "took care of me," as she put it, with a great
deal of curiosity and attention. If my wife, that whore,
attended me, I would never allow nanny to touch me,
because in my estimation, my wife's dominion of thought
and her sense of beauty were vaster than nanny's, or else
lust has created a sense of shyness and bashfulness in
me.
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Then again I said, "You are a fool, why don't you finish
yourself? What are you waiting for?... What more is there
for you to desire? Isn't the wine flask in the closet of
your room?...Take a slug and there you go!... fool!...you
are a fool... "Then I realized that I was addressing the
empty air!
The entire display spread before him had the rusty smell
of dirty things refused by life, as if he intended to
blame people for what life has refused, or perhaps he
intended merely to display them. Wasn't he himself old
and dejected? The articles in his display were all
lifeless, dirty and worn out; nevertheless, the display
had a persistent life as well as profoundly meaningful
forms! The effect of these articles on me was greater
than the effect of living human beings.
"Are you not free? Are you not doing whatever you wish to
do? What's my health to you?" I snapped at her.
She slammed the door and left; she didn't even turn to
look at me. I had forgotten how to communicate with the
people of the world, with the living. This woman whom I
thought had no feeling whatsoever took offense at my act!
Several times I wished to go to her and throw myself at
her feet, cry and ask for forgiveness. Indeed, I wanted
to cry because I thought if I were able to cry, it would
decrease the intensity of my remorse and I would feel
better. Several minutes, hours, or maybe even several
centuries passed--I don't know. I was not keeping track
of time--I was like a lunatic who becomes intoxicated
with his own suffering. The state of ecstasy that I
experienced is beyond human conception; I was the only
one who could experience such a state, a state even
beyond the reach of gods if they actually existed... At
that moment I discovered that I was indeed superior; I
was above the rabble, above the phenomenal world, and I
even felt that I had surpassed those gods who are the
offspring of human lust. I was a god, even bigger than a
god, because within me I felt an eternal, infinite flux.
... But she returned. She was not as cruel as I had
imagined. I rose, kissed her skirt and, coughing and
crying, threw myself at her feet. I rubbed my face
against her calf and several times called her by her real
name--her real name seemed to have a special ring to it.
But as I embraced her legs, which were bitter, soft and
acrid, like the taste of the bitter end of a cucumber, in
my heart--at the bottom of my heart, that is--I repeated
"whore ... whore!" and I cried and cried. I lost all
track of time, but when I came to, she was gone. As I sat
before the smoking tallow burner in the same position in
which I sit before the opium brazier--like the odds-and-
ends man who sits at his display--for an instantaneous
moment, I experienced the full impact of the intoxicating
pleasures, caresses and sufferings of mankind. I was
bending over the tallow burner immobile, gazing at the
soot which, like black flakes of snow, was covering my
face. When my nanny, carrying a bowl of barley-broth and
some chicken pilaff, entered my room and saw me, she
screamed in terror and backed away, dropping the tray and
my dinner. It pleased me that at least I was able to
frighten her. I got up, cropped the wick with a pair of
snuffers and walked to the mirror. I rubbed the soot into
my face--what a horrible face! I began to pull my eye and
tug the corners of my mouth, I puffed out my cheeks, I
pulled the tip of my beard up and twisted the ends, I
made all kinds of faces; my face was capable of assuming
all manner of frightening and comical expressions,
although I recognized these expressions and I could feel
them, they still struck me as funny. All these were my
faces and they were in me; they were murderous, horrible
and comical masks which I could transform, one into
another, using the tip of a finger. In myself, I saw the
reflections of the old Qur'an reciter, the butcher, and
my wife; it was as though an image of each existed within
me, but none of them belonged to me. Are not the
substance and the expressions of my face responses to an
undefined stimulus created by the cumulative doubts,
copulations, and disappointments inherent in my
ancestors? And that I, the custodian of this burdensome
inheritance, due to some insane and humorous inclination,
have involuntarily allowed my thoughts to assume these
formal and rigid expressions! Only at the time of my
death, perhaps, will these doubts abandon me, and I may
be allowed to assume the expression naturally meant for
me.
When nanny brought ass's milk, honey and bread for me, I
noticed she had put a bone-handled, long-bladed knife at
the side of my breakfast tray as well. She said she saw
it on the odds-and-ends-man's display and bought it.
Then, raising her eyebrows indicating my wife's room, she
said, "It might come in handy!" I picked up the knife and
examined it. It was my own knife. Then, like one who is
offended and who has a complaint, she said, "Well, my
daughter (that whore, that is), at this early hour of the
morning is accusing me of stealing her dress last night!
Now, would I tell you a lie... but yesterday your wife
saw streaks of blood... we knew that the child... her
explanation is that she became pregnant in the bathhouse.
One night I massaged her back; her arm was all black and
blue. She showed her arm to me and said, 'I went into the
cellar at the wrong time and the you-know-who pinched
me!...' Did you know that your wife has been pregnant for
a long time?" I laughed and said, "And the child looks
like the old Qur'an reciter, no doubt. She must have been
thinking of him when the child first moved in her womb!"
Then nanny left the room in a storm as though she was not
expecting such an answer. I got up right away and with
shaking hands picked up the bone-handled, long-bladed
knife, took it to the closet, placed it in my souvenir
box and closed the lid.
"Shajun said, 'If I had not lost the child, the whole
house would be ours.'"
Quietly, like a mute who must repeat each word and who
must read a verse many times, death murmured its song. It
sounded like the reverberations of a saw cutting into
flesh; it shrieked and then suddenly it choked.
I hardly closed my eyes when a group of drunken night
watchmen passed my room swearing at each other and
singing in unison:
Let us go and drink mey--
The vine of the Kingdom of Ray;
If not today, then what day?
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. .
I felt the anguish of one who is awakened from a long,
deep sleep. I rubbed my eyes. I was in my old room. The
light was dim and a wet fog covered the window panes. The
crow of a rooster came from afar. The red charcoal in the
pot of fire, turned to ashes, could hardly withstand a
single breath. I had the feeling that, like the red
pieces of charcoal turned into hollow ashes, my thoughts,
too, could not withstand the blow of a single breath.
The first thing I looked for was the Raq jar that the old
carriage driver had given me in the graveyard, but it was
not before me. Then, I saw someone with a stooped shadow,
no, a stooped old man who had covered his head and face
with a scarf and who carried something like a jar wrapped
in a dirty handkerchief under his arm, in the doorway of
my room. He was laughing: a hideous, hollow laughter that
made my hair stand on end.
THE END